I take most, but not all insurances. I suspect the majority of doctors today would say the same.
I see a lot of articles about how patients who now have insurance can’t find doctors to see them. And, of course, generally this is blamed on doctors.
Dr. Allan M. Block
The problem is that people often equate insurance with health care, and they aren’t the same. If your insurance reimbursement is minimal, the odds are that no one in health care will be contracted with it. There may be a few newbie docs who figure they can make up the loss by sheer volume. As a result, they get badly overwhelmed, with long waiting-room times and a few months’ delay for appointments. As soon as they get established, they will drop the insurance. This creates a revolving door of doctors for some plans, as new docs use them to get started, then run away screaming and burned out at the first chance they get.
People often get upset and use the “You don’t care, you’re only in this for the money!” line when they find out I don’t take their insurance. My staff hears it frequently.
On the contrary, I do care. If I didn’t, I’d likely get out of medicine entirely. The fact that I’m still doing this after 16 years says that much.
But, in order to take care of people, I also have to pay my rent, staff, insurance, and all the other amounts that make up an overhead. If I can’t keep my office open, then I’m not able to help anyone.
This gets tricky, as some insurances will pay less than the amount needed for me to stay in practice. Some will argue that it’s better than nothing, but, if you’re not making enough to meet overhead, then nothing and less than the amount needed for me to stay in practice mean pretty much the same thing.
If I don’t take your insurance, I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with you. It means that company has decided not to pay me enough to cover my expenses (their decision, not mine), and so I had to drop them in order to continue helping others.
Like all other doctors, I’m forced to decide what works best for both me and the highest number of my patients. To continue caring for people, I need to stay open, and I select the insurances that will allow me to do that. I can’t be everyone’s doctor.
So please, don’t be angry if I no longer take your insurance. In a perfect world, overhead and business decisions wouldn’t play such a key role in medicine. But our world is far from perfect and always will be.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.